Modern devices are capable of messaging using a number of known messaging protocols and services. Some protocols/services have certain weaknesses such as cost and unreliability. Some are considered relatively slow and may be network specific.
One existing messaging protocol/service is the SMS (short message service) protocol/service which is often used in cellular type services to relay short messages. Although SMS is a relatively widespread means of messaging communication, unfortunately it has the aforesaid weaknesses. Use of SMS services not only can cost a user a non-negligible amount per message, resulting in relatively hefty costs per month or per year, but also suffers from a relatively frequent loss of messages sent by users.
It is noted that Short Message Service (SMS) usually refers to wireless alphanumeric text messages sent to a PCS telephone. The GSM protocol is, as yet, the only protocol to support text responses from a PCS telephone. Several competing protocols support the receiving of these messages but not the transmitting, or the responding back to the sender. The supporters of these other protocols are now adding on the ability to initiate or respond to text messages. Some other existing protocols may not be as susceptible to reliability problems and are not as costly, however, they may not be as widespread as SMS. For example, there are peer to peer (P2P) protocols that allow one device to communicate with another device without any server/message center interference. Such services may allow messages to be sent with high speed and reliability regardless of the type of network that the devices are running on. Specific examples of such a peer to peer protocols include PIN2PIN.
Existing user devices now have the ability to be used to communicate with different media and over various communication protocols/services depending upon choices made by the user of the device. A common practice utilized in communication is to answer a message of a communications session using the same media and communication protocol as the original message. Consistent with this is the often included device feature of “reply” which enables the recipient of a message to reply to the sender of the message in the same media and over the same communication protocol/service as the original message.